Google: Infoparasite
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Google has executed an information coup d’état. From its early days as a noncommercial search engine powered by geeky idealists, it has become the primary force in commercializing our culture. No bit of online content escapes Google’s grasp without first being turned into fodder for advertising. Whether it is our emails, our videos or our blogs and books, access is granted only if we accept the presence of targeted advertising. Google has become the commercialized frame through which our culture is accessed, and it is therefore the first advertising company to achieve the status of the cultural paratext.
For literary theorists, the paratext is contrasted with the hypotext. While the latter refers to the content of the author’s words, the paratext is everything that surrounds those pages: the cover, the copyright notice, the editor’s introduction, the author’s bio – all these make up the content that complements the hypotext. The paratext is a part of the overall text, but it plays a unique role in framing the work. When we speak of not judging a book by its cover, for example, we are acknowledging the overwhelming power that the paratext has in influencing our interpretation of the original source material. Understanding the force of the paratext pushes us to consider the consequences for our culture if everything online is surrounded in a frame of advertising.
This is why quibbles over the relevance and usefulness of Google’s ads, or whether they are distracting, miss the fundamental point. If advertising becomes the frame of our culture, then all thought is constrained by its horizon. The forces of commercialization need not counter the messages of anti-consumerism if they are able to play the role of the paratext. Simply running advertisements alongside attacks on commercialized culture neutralizes that resistance. All of a sudden it seems unreasonable, impossible or old-fashioned to dream outside Google’s ad-frame.
Google is happy to remain an infoparasite, an organization attaching advertising to the creative products of our minds, because there has been little resistance. Unlike traditional advertisers, whose interjection of 30-second spots into the hypotext of culture alienated viewers, Google promotes the illusion that it doesn’t change the content: It only provides access. But whether one is rewriting the hypotext or replacing the paratext, the overall effect is the same: Authentic culture, our only hope of escaping consumerism, is appropriated and commercialized.
Today’s culture jammers face a formidable challenge. It takes courage to become the early pioneers of the backlash against Google: to be the first to refuse to have our words become hypotext for the advertising frame. That means turning our back on this search engine-turned-info-highwayman by simultaneously undermining its image of omniscience while we hurt its bottom line.
Remove your writings, your images, yourself from Google. Make it known that our cultural productions are not available for commercial exploitation. And while we challenge the assumption that Google is all knowing, let us hit advertisers where it hurts: by clicking on all the ads. With each click we will cost the advertisers money while spreading the most powerful idea of all: that the paratext of ads is about to be ruptured by a movement of jammers taking back their culture.
Micah White is a Contributing Editor at Adbusters. He lives in Berkeley, CA and is currently writing a book about the future of activism. www.micahmwhite.com or micah (at) adbusters.org
52 comments on the article “Google: Infoparasite”
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sum1
There is Add-Art for replacing Google Ads with artworks:
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/6846/
Also don't forget the Google Will Eat Itself project by Ubermorgen: http://gwei.org
sum1
There is Add-Art for replacing Google Ads with artworks:
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/6846/
Also don't forget the Google Will Eat Itself project by Ubermorgen: http://gwei.org
Stef
I love Micah White and I hate advertising, but I do think she's off track here. Yes Google are now by far the largest purveyors of advertising, so they make a natural Adbusters target. In fact it's almost surprising it's taken until now for someone to take a swipe, but the reality is Google is probably the best company to handle advertising. Few realize that Google's dirty little secret is that they don't actually like advertising.
The founders are more than just well meaning geeks, they're actually 15 veterans of Burning Man, the counter-cultural arts festival with a heavy anti-commercial bias. Where money is banned and any advertising (the logo on your rent-a-truck for example) is requested to be covered up or replace with art. It's almost impossible to go to Burning Man and not understand and indeed embrace this agenda and the Google boys clearly do. For example, Google recently allowed software developers to add plug-in adblocking software to their Chrome browser. That's clearly contradictory to their business model, but their thinking was that by allowing users to block ads, it will force advertisers to create ads that people actually want.
Sure, Adbusters reader would love to rid the world of ALL advertising, but I still see a place for 'company messages' about a product that tells me the details and 'pros' about their product, as much as I also want to see user reviews and ratings that give me the 'cons' and straight dope for a balanced picture. And this is exactly the model that Google supplies. Advertising when you ask for it, along side user ratings and reviews. Want ads drained of the gratuitous aspirational marketing ploys, and replaced with succinct details of their product or service? Add the ad busting plug-ins to Chrome and let companies know that you want information, not hollow marketing scams. Yes we should all keep our watchdog status, but we're extremely lucky Google's at the helm.
Stef
I love Micah White and I hate advertising, but I do think she's off track here. Yes Google are now by far the largest purveyors of advertising, so they make a natural Adbusters target. In fact it's almost surprising it's taken until now for someone to take a swipe, but the reality is Google is probably the best company to handle advertising. Few realize that Google's dirty little secret is that they don't actually like advertising.
The founders are more than just well meaning geeks, they're actually 15 veterans of Burning Man, the counter-cultural arts festival with a heavy anti-commercial bias. Where money is banned and any advertising (the logo on your rent-a-truck for example) is requested to be covered up or replace with art. It's almost impossible to go to Burning Man and not understand and indeed embrace this agenda and the Google boys clearly do. For example, Google recently allowed software developers to add plug-in adblocking software to their Chrome browser. That's clearly contradictory to their business model, but their thinking was that by allowing users to block ads, it will force advertisers to create ads that people actually want.
Sure, Adbusters reader would love to rid the world of ALL advertising, but I still see a place for 'company messages' about a product that tells me the details and 'pros' about their product, as much as I also want to see user reviews and ratings that give me the 'cons' and straight dope for a balanced picture. And this is exactly the model that Google supplies. Advertising when you ask for it, along side user ratings and reviews. Want ads drained of the gratuitous aspirational marketing ploys, and replaced with succinct details of their product or service? Add the ad busting plug-ins to Chrome and let companies know that you want information, not hollow marketing scams. Yes we should all keep our watchdog status, but we're extremely lucky Google's at the helm.
Anonymous
But...but...I can still find Micah White on Google.
Anonymous
But...but...I can still find Micah White on Google.
la-femme-electrique
I do believe, that things got mixed up here a bit. The point Micah might have with "clicking on adds is costing advertisers money" is actually true. You do pay by click (because you expect sales out of that click) and the more people click (without buying) the more you pay. But even more true is, that you indeed pay google, that is the advertisers do. However, the idea might reaches beyond the next step, because by clicking on ads aimlessly, the are getting more expensive, while sales do not increase, hence the advertisement model fails.
The solution most of you now came up with, or the fear, that if google and its advertisers note, that the ads don´t work anymore and that they then close down free accounts or whatever seems a bit weird. I rather believer what someone said about moving even further in the middle. From advertisers poitn of view, I think they will even get more agrressive and creepy, trying to enter social site to approach user directly and/or in "their" language or on their mobiles.
Another problem no one has mentioned yet, concerning google, is that they already invest and look into the control of news. News are considered up to now, by most people as something neutral and trustworthy (although this notion has become less true with PR and the like). However, controlling peoples searches also means control of access and by controlling what is trustful News, google becomes even more of an uncontrolled giant. Did you know, that not only google, but yahoo and agencies track searches on the web constantly to see what comes up, i.e. what people are looking for? They then create the content matching the search, but not to make the web a better, more informative place (something google still claims, very clever marketing indeed), but to create an ad-environment, that can be easily targeted.
some facts about what money is in ads: http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2010/04/ftc-blocking-of-google-mobile-ad-acquisition-would-be-misguided/
How bidding works: http://www.wired.com/culture/culturereviews/magazine/17-06/nep_googlenomics%3FcurrentPage%3Dall
la-femme-electrique
I do believe, that things got mixed up here a bit. The point Micah might have with "clicking on adds is costing advertisers money" is actually true. You do pay by click (because you expect sales out of that click) and the more people click (without buying) the more you pay. But even more true is, that you indeed pay google, that is the advertisers do. However, the idea might reaches beyond the next step, because by clicking on ads aimlessly, the are getting more expensive, while sales do not increase, hence the advertisement model fails.
The solution most of you now came up with, or the fear, that if google and its advertisers note, that the ads don´t work anymore and that they then close down free accounts or whatever seems a bit weird. I rather believer what someone said about moving even further in the middle. From advertisers poitn of view, I think they will even get more agrressive and creepy, trying to enter social site to approach user directly and/or in "their" language or on their mobiles.
Another problem no one has mentioned yet, concerning google, is that they already invest and look into the control of news. News are considered up to now, by most people as something neutral and trustworthy (although this notion has become less true with PR and the like). However, controlling peoples searches also means control of access and by controlling what is trustful News, google becomes even more of an uncontrolled giant. Did you know, that not only google, but yahoo and agencies track searches on the web constantly to see what comes up, i.e. what people are looking for? They then create the content matching the search, but not to make the web a better, more informative place (something google still claims, very clever marketing indeed), but to create an ad-environment, that can be easily targeted.
some facts about what money is in ads: http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2010/04/ftc-blocking-of-google-mobile-ad-acquisition-would-be-misguided/
How bidding works: http://www.wired.com/culture/culturereviews/magazine/17-06/nep_googlenomics%3FcurrentPage%3Dall
RC
Hmm...how about stop using Google and, better yet, the Internet? I am so sick of articles only about Google or Twitter or Facebook. These sites are not that important in the grand scheme of life!!! Boycott them, and go talk to people face to face, and read real, physical books. I mean my god, why doesn't anyone want to go out and live anymore instead of endlessly searching for things on Google? Limit your Internet-use time as much as you possibly can, please, for the sake of human community. Don't let yourselves become drones.
RC
Hmm...how about stop using Google and, better yet, the Internet? I am so sick of articles only about Google or Twitter or Facebook. These sites are not that important in the grand scheme of life!!! Boycott them, and go talk to people face to face, and read real, physical books. I mean my god, why doesn't anyone want to go out and live anymore instead of endlessly searching for things on Google? Limit your Internet-use time as much as you possibly can, please, for the sake of human community. Don't let yourselves become drones.
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